( A tip of his head at the Ah-Xu, and he smiles to himself without saying anything at the moment. Getting into the details of comings and goings, returns and disappearances, how time never appears to be lost on the sides of the gateways belonging to those who'd been pulled in, that can be a conversation when out of the maze.

Especially when he's asked, in the drizzle of rain that's only softened by a summerlike breeze, if they don't work for the death lords themselves. )

The death lords used magic of some kind to pull us here. The gateways we travel toward are the means of us returning to where we came from. The death lords have a mind to take us and turn us into powerful sources of energy for their own weapons. Likely refining us into souls they bind or transform forcibly, we've seen evidence of such in their creatures.

( The vines on the walls by them shift without a breeze, tendrils on the ground reaching out toward them. Wei Wuxian sidesteps the clumsy, slow motions, picking his progress forward. Whatever the path they walked, there'd be some destination at the centre, he knows it likely. )

The one who calls himself Merchant aids us to keep us away from their hands. Not out of good will, ah? Men on paths of vengeance simply don't wish to allow their enemies advantages.